David Rowe Beddoe (Lord Rowe Beddoe) – (Stowe, 1951-1955)
Address at Service of Interment in St David’s Cathedral on Wednesday, 22 June 2011 – also delivered in an abbreviated version at the Stowe Memorial Service on 10 September 2011.
To begin at the beginning we are here today – back, so to speak, to where it all began.
Joseph Bain was born on 26 April 1928 in St David’s, of a Scots father and a Welsh mother – a mother whose maiden name was Preece (Frances Preece), and whose family were substantial farmers around this beautiful gem of a city. It is wonderful to have Olivia here, Joe’s first cousin, and Sandra.
Joseph’s father came from a family of Glasgow bankers. On the retirement of his grandfather, the Scots family moved from the Tweed to St David’s, via London where his grandfather worked in the Public Records Office and produced The Calendar of Scottish Papers, familiarly known as “Bain’s Bible”. Joe was descended collaterally from John Knox as well as an academic divine, the Reverend Witherspoon, who became President of Princeton University in the 1760s and was a signatory of the American Declaration of Independence.
School life for Joe commenced here at The Church School, and it was here that he learned inter alia the Lord’s Prayer in Welsh, which started his romance with the land of his mother and with ‘The Language of Heaven’, Yn Iaith Y Nefoedd. He boarded later at Haverfordwest Grammar School where he was introduced to Ancient Greek, and then went to Marlborough where his father had been a Master – an association of which he was proud, for I recall that the first time I set eyes on him he was wearing an Old Marlburian tie. Indeed, in those 15 months as a boy at Stowe that my career overlapped with his arrival as a Master, it was quite favoured neckwear.
From Marlborough, the Royal Air Force had the pleasure of his company for over two years during his National Service, the extension being due to the Berlin airlift which was in progress at that time. He did not fly and notably spent a large part of his time stationed in Gloucester, writing reports and references on personnel and so learning to develop his incisive English prose.
From mid blue to light blue – St John’s College, Cambridge: Modern Languages Part I, English Part II of the Tripos, followed by a Diploma in Education. Acting and the theatre rapidly became an important part of his life and, as far as his modesty would permit him to mention, he recalled his playing of Jack in The Importance of Being Earnest and directing Samson Agonistes in the St John’s College Chapel as two achievements.
And so to Stowe, where this young new Master arrived in Cobham Court in an open-top red MG. I well remember looking out of a study window with more than idle curiosity as to who this person could be. Fortunately, for me, for Miles Elliott (here today), and other Chandosians of that vintage, his arrival was indeed exciting. His study, below the Chandos library, soon became a haven for minds searching to be broadened, searching to be questioned, searching to listen to this young polymath. The grand piano, fairly central, was covered with music – sheet and volume; books were piled all over the floor – plays, poetry, criticism – in English, French and German. His style of teaching always contained both humour and a touch of self-deprecation. I was there but four terms with him before departing to my National Service and then following in his footsteps to St John’s, but during that time at Stowe a relationship started which grew into a friendship that endured to the day he died.
Joe’s first involvement with, and therefore entry into, the Stowe drama world – in which he later became a great influence and a tower of strength – was his production of His Excellency in November 1954. The choice of play was not his decision but that of the Congreve Club. His production and his talent shone through; as one critic observed, “This muddled and rather perfunctory play was given a much better performance than it deserved.”
The Beggar’s Opera was the second major production in that winter of 1954 in which Joe this time made his debut as an actor on the Stowe stage. A distinguished critic said, “The prologue set the general tone accurately, with Mr Bain made up to the limits of recognisability as the Beggar, full of quiet and dignified pride in his work.”
In 1955, Joe created an entertainment to be performed in the open air on the steps of, and around about, the Temple of Ancient Virtue. He saw the potential of an informal Midsummer Madness, as it was called – some poetry reading, some music and two short plays, X Equals Nought and The Poacher by J O Francis, which he not only directed, but in which he also appeared, together with myself and Brook Williams, son of actor and playwright Emlyn. Three likely lads – Dicky Bach Dwl, Twmas Shôn, Dafydd Hughes – disported themselves amidst Stowe’s Elysian Fields. We all thought it was a success, but the evening was overtaken by the unexpected arrival of Richard Burton, who joined the audience sitting on the grass; this in no way fazed the sophisticated Joe, but left Brook and me a bundle of nerves.
A major triumph at the end of 1955 was his production of Enrico Quarto. “Mr Bain is much to be congratulated on his production. He made all the points with ease and skill…. One felt that he had given Pirandello every chance, and that anyone who, after seeing this play, did not appreciate the great Italian master would never do so.”
Not content with performing and directing, Joe of course gave the Stowe world the benefit of his well-honed critical style. Reviewing a school orchestra concert in March of that year, he begins, “There seems to me little to be said in favour of the first two items of this concert. The Mendelssohn (introduction and scherzo from the cantata Hymn of Praise) is an insipid work in his worst style, and the Borodin is both difficult to perform and turgid and over-long …”
His musical skills were first publicly demonstrated at Stowe at the piano in Purcell’s The Golden Sonata accompanying two violins and cello, in which he demonstrated another facet of his multi- performing talent.
Upon the retirement of Peter Dams, Joe took over the Congreve Club which he developed and ran in his inimitable style until the day he moved to Winchester. Apart from the Congreve Club productions and some Chandos House plays, he quite quickly replaced Bill McElwee, when the former left for Sandhurst, as the producer of the annual outdoor Shakespeare production at the Queen’s Temple. Productions included Twelfth Night, Othello, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream under the great cedar tree on the south front.
Joe used to say he was “most fortunate” in that he had had “two lives for the price of one” – his school-mastering life in England and his Welsh life. When Justin Wintle asked him once what had given him most satisfaction, without hesitation he said it was his production of Fidelio. In the last conversation Justin had with him before Joe went into Withybush Hospital he remarked that he was exceedingly fortunate to have been born after Beethoven as “life without Beethoven would not have been worth living.”
The great musical influences in his life began with Beethoven and probably ended with Wagner. He embraced the 19th Century with passion. When we performed the Ring Cycle over four consecutive nights at Wales Millennium Centre at the end of 2006 Joe came for one night, to see The Valkyrie. After the performance at supper, I sat him next to Valery Gergiev, whose St Petersburg company was performing. Joe was initially flattered and momentarily a touch intimidated by his placement but quite soon engaged the Maestro in detailed questioning, not just of the opera itself but, of course, the whole Ring and then the Wagner repertoire. He and Gergiev both agreed that the Russian brass was “quite something else”: that noise was clearly what Mr Wagner had had in mind!
His Winchester days, I am sure, had the same impact upon the student body. He was a Master there from 1974 to 1988 and largely responsible for Drama and, of course, teaching English and some Modern Language. He is remembered especially for his teaching of Division in the Sixth Form. Two drama productions which are recalled were that of Racine’s Andromaque, and an outstanding production of Fidelio in celebration of the 600th anniversary of the College. It has been described as “stunning” and utilised girls from St Swithin’s as well as soloists from the Royal College of Music. It was a magnificent project, executed with great skill.
In the early 1960s, before he became a Housemaster, he went with a party of boys to Tudor Hall for Scottish dancing activities. His performances in Strip the Willow allegedly needed to be seen to be believed, but whether his dancing skills were up to it or not, there he set eyes upon Priscilla who was Headmistress at the time. They married in 1972 and she was, and is, to him a wonderful support and a partner who completed and complemented him.
They left Winchester in 1988 upon his retirement, direct for Pembrokeshire having bought a house in Tenby towards the end of that year. I recall he mentioned whether they would settle in St David’s or Cambridge, but it was The Norton that won out and that beautiful Georgian house with its blissful sea views was a place that soon was transformed unmistakably into their home.
He set about working at his Welsh, he had excellent comprehension and his reading was fluent. He worked occasionally at the library here at the Cathedral, keeping an eye on what books were left following the Reformation damage, and then a new hobby presented itself and he enthusiastically took up painting. His output was much enjoyed, sometimes allegorical, almost always very amusing, and we awaited the home-made Christmas card eagerly each year.
We are so very fortunate to have shared time with this extraordinary, inspirational and warm person, a great teacher, indeed educationalist, of the 20th Century who made his indelible mark upon generations of young men from two great English public schools.
When I last saw him three days before he died in hospital he suddenly looked at me with a cheeky and teasing glint in his eye and said “You do know, I am half Scot too!” But Joe was a passionate Welshman who wore the Dragon on his sleeve – and red braces to keep his trousers up! He was a man of many parts and a true son of Wales. He will be interred in his parents’ grave which is situated next to that of his grandparents. When Priscilla and her kind and supportive neighbour Christine were looking for the grave the other day, they came across a groundsman who was able to direct them instantly and remembered Joe, describing him as “a person who looked just like Augustus John”.
To Priscilla we extend our deepest sympathy in her great loss, and pray that she will be comforted in the knowledge of the affection, nay love, in which Joe is held by so very many.
“We can shed tears that he is gone, or we can smile because he has lived.”
“We can try and close our minds, be empty and turn ours back, or we can do what he’d want: smile, open our eyes, love and go on.”
“We can remember him, and only that he’s gone, or we can cherish his memory and let it live on.”
And, as another West Walian wrote some years ago:
“He shall have stars at elbow and foot…. Though lovers be lost, love shall not; and death shall have no dominion.”